Bluetooth dongles all the same?

ultim · 18 Apr 2006 at 07:50

im in the market for a usb bluetooth dongle for my phone. This is my first time purchase.

Are all usb bluetooth dongles the same? theres a lot of choice out there.

Is there any difference between a cheapo one and an expensive one?

Also will any bluetooth software work for any bluetooth device?

answer my questions!
please.

ajm · 18 Apr 2006 at 09:39

No they are not all the same.There are class 1 & class 2,,i think 1 is 10m and the other is 100m range.

Chocki · 18 Apr 2006 at 11:18

There's more to them than just class 1 and 2, not all bluetooth units support all bluetooth standards, and some won't work unless they use their own proprietary software which means you are usually limited on functionality!.

Bluetooth can be a complete nightmare and I would strongly advise that you do a complete system image before installing anything bluetooth related, because from experience I have found that trying to uninstall a bluetooth device can leave you with a non operational machine!, and this has occured to me with 3 different bluetooth units!, they usually uninstall OK, but also remove your ability to be able to surf the net.

Also some bluetooth software especially for headsets, is keyed to it's dongle only and wont work with any other bluetooth hardware, and the dongle is usually limited to audio gateway and maybe a few other bluetooth features, but I have yet to come across one that provides full bluetooth functionality.

DJ Baz · 21 Apr 2006 at 15:24

So, can anyone recommend a good bluetooth dongle, or should I just get the cheapest I can lay my hands on?

10m range should be fine, it's only for my sister who wants to transfer pictures off her camera phone... :rolleyes:

Datamonkey · 21 Apr 2006 at 15:58

for just camera phone usage,

cheap n cheerful would do.

Toytown · 21 Apr 2006 at 16:03

Make sure your phone supports File-Transfer over bluetooth before you bother buying a bluetooth adapter. Ive had a few NEC/Samsung phones that offer bluetooth, but only offer audio over bluetooth (like headset/car handsfree etc), not all of them support Filetransfer.

Also ive had a lot of bad experiences with belkin bluetooth adapters and would try and avoid them if possible (in fact ive had bad experiences with just about everything belkiin i have bought )

DJ Baz · 21 Apr 2006 at 17:06

Thanks... cheapo it is then

barney · 21 Apr 2006 at 18:16

Toytown said:
Make sure your phone supports File-Transfer over bluetooth before you bother buying a bluetooth adapter. Ive had a few NEC/Samsung phones that offer bluetooth, but only offer audio over bluetooth (like headset/car handsfree etc), not all of them support Filetransfer.

Also ive had a lot of bad experiences with belkin bluetooth adapters and would try and avoid them if possible (in fact ive had bad experiences with just about everything belkiin i have bought )

Yep same here, got a load of belkin networking gear that is gathering dust in a cupboard because it never worked 100% perfect (all netgear and cisco now

). I would think just a cheapo bluetooth module would be fine too.

Toytown · 21 Apr 2006 at 18:48

Some of the belkin network gear uses generic cpu's so you can firmware flash them to other makers firmware. My belkin pre-n used to crash almost once a day, and visiting certain websites would cause it to hand (sometimes even on this forum), after flashing it to a linksys WRT54GX, its never crashed since, and i got a load of new features